The attack of ransomware “WannaCry” has put governments and businesses around the world on edge, but in fact the underground market for exploit or software vulnerabilities bugs like this has been an existence at least since the 1990s. Informal sharing of these vulnerabilities goes back to the dawn of computing – notably phone “phreaking” – tinkering with telecommunication devices and the Massachusetts Model Railway Club credited with the early fostering of a hacker sub-culture from the 1960s onwards.

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